Transworld Publishers are delighted to announce the acquisition of two novels by UK debut author Paula Daly.

Rachel Rayner, Commissioning Editor, bought Just What Kind of Mother Are You? and The Day Before You Came from agent Jane Gregory at a lively auction involving six major publishers.

Just What Kind of Mother Are You? is a novel that plays on one of your greatest fears – what would you do if your best friend’s daughter went missing on your watch? That’s what happens to Lisa Kallisto – an overwhelmed working mother of three – one freezing December day in the Lake District. Not only is thirteen-year-old Lucinda missing and it’s all Lisa’s fault, but she’s the second teenage girl to go missing from the area in the last fortnight. But, as she peels away the layers surrounding Lucinda’s disappearance, Lisa learns that all is not quite as it first appears to be.

“I’m incredibly excited to be working with Paula Daly at the beginning of what I’m sure will be a brilliant career. Just What Kind of Mother Are You?,with its terrifying premise, distinctive voice and cracking plot, has that instant word-of-mouth quality, evidenced by the enthusiastic in-house reads and immediate buzz from my colleagues across all departments here,” said Rachel Rayner.

“It has been an exciting auction and I’m thrilled that Transworld are publishing,” said Jane Gregory.

Paula Daly said: “I am absolutely delighted to be published by Transworld. It’s a real honour to be in the company of such incredibly talented authors as Kate Atkinson, SJ Watson and Belinda Bauer.”

Just What Kind of Mother Are You? will be published in Bantam Press hardcover and ebook in Spring 2013, with Paula’s second novel The Day Before You Came to come a year later. Transworld Publishers hold UK & Commonwealth (excluding Canada) rights for both books. Internationally, rights have already been sold in Germany (Goldmann Verlag), Italy (Longanesi), Holland (De Fontein (De Kern)) and Israel (Kinneret-Zmora-Dvir Publishing).